


L Street Has a Red Door

by anr



Category: Community
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven times Jeff and Britta drink together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L Street Has a Red Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> Spoilers: Seasons 2 to 3.
> 
> Request: Britta/Jeff.

  


* * *

  


Once Troy gets back to the car and finishes his passive-aggressive almost-weepy "It's my birthday and I'll not cry if I want to" stance of moral-something-or-other, he drives her home next and there's this moment when she's climbing over Jeff to get out of the car (because of course she's too drunk to wait for him to get out first, and of course he's too drunk to even realise that he _should_ get out first, and, well, _because_ ) when she's straddling him proper and his hands are low on her hips, fingers curving around her ass and pulling her closer, his dick half-hard between her legs, that she thinks, she thinks, she --

Licking her lips, she tastes remnants of Jeff and scotch and vodka and _Jeff_ and feels his grip on her body tighten even as her left hand scrabbles for the door handle. "You should, um, not? Do that. Or --"

Abed stirs from where he's slumped against the opposite door. " _Jerry Maguire_ ," he says sleepily, "nice. Jeff -- tell Britta she completes you. Troy -- ask to see the money. Britta -- take the fish."

"Go to sleep, Abed," says Jeff, but he's still looking at her, and his hands haven't moved, and -- oh, god, is he starting to _smile_ at her? Like, with drunken happy-happy thoughts spreading all over his face and -- oh, no. No fucking way.

"No, no, no, no, _no_." Gripping the door handle, she pushes the door open, falling after it despite Jeff's grabby-hands hold on her. She hits the sidewalk awkwardly, bruising her elbow as she rolls onto her hands and knees before pushing herself up, but she only stumbles once (okay, twice) in her efforts to _actually_ stand so, okay, _yay_.

Jeff leans out of the car after her, seatbelt pulling tight across his chest as he carefully holds onto the door frame. He blinks up at her. "You dead?"

 _Your eyes are really, really tall_ , she thinks, and starts to laugh.

  


* * *

  


"I'm going to kill you in the morning, you know," she says, "just FYI."

Jeff laughs. "No, you're not."

Dropping her arm into the water, she splashes him. "Oh, I so am."

"Nope." He wipes drops of water off his chin, and tilts his bottle of beer in her direction. "You can't. You'd need me to defend you if you murdered me and I can't defend you for my murder if I'm the one murdered. By you."

"Pfft." Leaning over, she takes his beer from him, a little surprised when he lets her without a fight. "You're not the only not-lawyer I know."

"Ah, but I am the _best_."

Ha! "Best pre-dead guy, maybe." She drains the bottle and sets it carefully on the wooden deck next to the rest of the six-pack they've been making their way through. Her bra-strap slips on her shoulder and she adjusts it before it can slide down her arm. "You had campus security call me to come and pick up Pierce _and_ you at two-frickin'-am. It'd be a crime if I _didn't_ kill you."

"As much as I applaud your chosen line of defence -- and one which, I should point out, I have successfully used before -- I think you're ignoring all the good things that came from this."

Rolling her eyes, she leans back until her neck is cradled on the edge of the hot tub, her body slowly floating up off the submerged bench seat and towards the surface. "Yeah? Name one."

"I can name five -- Pierce slept the whole way home."

Hmm, true. She closes her eyes.

"Pierce had alcohol in his fridge."

Also true.

"Pierce's hot tub was on _and_ just waiting for us to abuse it."

Okay, that too.

"Pierce went straight into his holographic laser isolation tank bed thingy as soon as we got here."

Best one yet, but -- "that's only four," she says, opening her eyes.

Jeff's wraps his hand around her ankle, smoothing up towards her knee, and she knows she should pull away, maybe even dunk his head under the water, but she's warm and drunkish and relaxed and his touch actually feels kinda good. (Maybe even better than good. _Maybe_.)

He leers at her, fingers slippery on her thigh. "You in wet underwear is really, _really_ hot."

Laughing, she kicks out and drenches him thoroughly.

  


* * *

  


Ever since she realised that she and Jeff have the same taste in bars (the _howisthatevenpossible_ of it doesn't make sense but whatever) it shouldn't really be that much of a surprise to look up after her third (fifth?) drink and catch a glimpse of someone who looks identically tall, scruffy-haired and douchey-hot winding a path through the lounges across the floor, drink in hand. Shouldn't be, but actually kinda is, because three years, okay? How insane is it that (excluding their group's many and varied outings) she's never seen him out drinking before now?

Draining the last of her drink, she slides off her stool. "I'm heading outside."

Margot looks over a little blearily. "You leavin'?"

She shakes her head. "Getting some air, s'all. You wanna?"

For a moment she thinks Margot's going to follow her out, but then Kris steps between them, a fresh round of drinks in hand, and the moment's gone. Leaving them to it, she makes her way out to the car park.

Most of the smokers are hanging near the side door, all bunched together like, but that's an easy way to go home smelling like she's smoked half a dozen packs in one night, instead of just a handful of cigarettes, so she pushes past them all and stops near the first row of parked cars. She's still in sight of the door, still inside the pools of streetlight and noise range of the others milling about, but not so close as to feel crowded in.

She's almost finished when she realises someone's coming up behind her; dropping her hand into her purse, she fumbles for her pepper spray.

"What happened to quitting?"

 _Figures_ , she thinks. Leaving the spray in her bag, she shrugs. "I wouldn't be much of a quitter if I didn't practice at it now and again." She looks up and winces as the streetlight behind him glares her vision. She looks down again. "What're _you_ doing?"

"Saw you come out and figured I'd say hi," he says. He takes a step to the side, shadowing her from the light. "You here with friends?"

She nods, dropping the butt and grinding it out with her toe, before leaning back against the car closest to them. "You?"

"Lawyers," he says. "One of the junior partners at my firm just won a suit for Gamble Pharmaceuticals; he's celebrating."

She makes a face. "Gamble Pharmaceuticals is a corporate suck of commercialis--"

Jeff covers her mouth with his fingers. "Ah, ah, ah! Please, okay? Don't kill my buzz." He draws his hand away. "I'm in the mellow zone right now and don't want to leave."

"Sell out," she says, but it's a little half-hearted and she can feel her lips tingling (probably because his touch is, like, ten degrees of toxic or something) and she licks them nervously. Ducking her head, she digs out her smokes and lighter, slipping out another cigarette. Before she can put the pack away, he touches her hand.

"You mind?" he asks, and she blinks up at him for a moment before shrugging, letting him take one. (If he wants to kill his lungs too, whatever, that's his issue. She's got enough of her own to worry about.)

She lights his cigarette for him, lights her own, watching as he turns and shifts until he's leaning on the car beside her. His shoulder presses against hers.

A group of kids about Troy's age spill out of the bar, laughing and shouting and scattering the smokers near the door. By the time the partygoers have disappeared into their cars, she and Jeff are seemingly the only ones left outside.

She drags on her cigarette, feeling increasingly weirdly uncomfortable, standing alone in the semi-dark with him all quiet and steady beside her. She can't help but think she'd feel better if he was cracking jokes or texting on his blackberry or something. Hell, she'd maybe even possibly be okay with him trying to hit on her.

Jeff flicks his cigarette away, the butt bouncing off the gravel and sending up a brief arc of sparks. "You coming back in?" he asks.

"Yeah." She drops and steps on her own cigarette. "Sure."

They don't walk close enough to touch, but she can _feel_ him beside her anyway, his long strides for once matching pretty closely to her own. Inside, neither of them say anything as he turns towards the lounges and lawyers, as she turns towards the tables and stools and her friends, still sitting there with a vodka-and-four-olives waiting for her return.

All of a sudden, she really -- _really_ \-- needs that drink.

  


* * *

  


Drinking at weddings? Frickin' _awesome_ idea.

Drinking at weddings to the point where they almost get matrimonially committed _themselves_?

Yeah, she's got nothing that can explain _that_ madness.

  


* * *

  


She usually spends her Saturday's not-studying and rehydrating and not remembering key parts of her Friday nights and not-studying some more. (She has a really bad feeling about their next Bio exam.)

Her cell rings while she's studying the contents of her fridge (what? totally counts) and contemplating a one-night-stand with anorexia. "Yeah?"

"When did we discuss the evolution of evolution? Was I sleeping? Was I even _there_?"

Jeff. "If you were, you were the only one." Grabbing a jar of cream cheese out of the door shelf, she looks for an expiration date. "Hey, what's your take on 'best before' dates? Golden rule or polite suggestion, like when your mother says 'don't wear anklet's with fishnets after Independence day'?"

Jeff sighs. Loudly. "Pizza okay?"

She shuts the fridge door. "No meat."

  
-  
  


She changes her mind no less than five times after she rings off but every time she goes to call him back and tell him to forget about it, that he's not allowed to come over and never, ever will be, her stomach growls and selfishness wins out. She's _hungry_ , damnit.

It takes Jeff about fifteen minutes to get to her place which is suspiciously impressive considering he lives at least half an hour away, depending on traffic and school hours and other things she totally never bothered to calculate.

"Were you already on your way over when you called?" she asks, narrowing her eyes and taking the pizza box out of his hands.

"What? _No_ ," he scoffs. He shuts the front door and follows her over to the sofa. "I was at the gym on 23rd."

"I thought you were studying?"

"What, you've never bench-pressed a textbook before?"

"You do know that you can't actually absorb knowledge through osmosis, right?" She gives him a quick once-over. "Why aren't you all sweaty?"

"I showered before I called you."

"Your hair's not wet."

"That's because I _dried_ it -- what is this? Twenty questions?"

"Four, actually, and seeing as how you not only dried your hair but also _styled_ it, my answer is _you're a girl_."

Taking a slice of pizza, he throws a piece of olive at her head, and she ducks, and that's probably the best way that conversation could have ended, so.

  
-  
  


Okay, so there's this moment where her brain flashes up snapshot memories of his hands on her body and her fingers in his hair from their terribly ill-fated affair last year, but those fade pretty quickly when he comments that he's pretty sure he saw her furniture on an A&E special on 'stuff even the Salvation Army won't accept'.

Ass-douche.

  
-  
  


Studying with only Jeff is actually pretty easy. She's prepared for the usual non-stop arguing, bad pick-up lines and general Jeff Winger patented laziness but, without the others around, he's surprisingly focused. While he has no patience for learning anything more than the absolute basics, he's able to skim-read and recite those basics back with very little effort.

"My para-minions would do all my case research and then give me the highlights right before court," he explains, grabbing another couple of beers out of her fridge. "All I had to do then was spin it out."

"Bullshit, you mean," she says, taking her beer.

He shrugs. "Potato, whatever. It worked." Her cat has appropriated the armchair he'd been sitting in previously and, after a half-hearted shoo attempt -- which her cat pointedly ignores -- Jeff rolls his eyes and drops down on the other end of her sofa instead. "Chapter six," he says, taking the textbook out of her hands and snapping it shut, "go."

She sinks back into the cushions and summarises the main points on her fingers, forgetting only half of them. When she's done, she tilts her beer bottle in his direction. "Your turn -- list the hierarchy of biological classification's eight major taxonomic ranks."

Groaning, he closes his eyes.

  
-  
  


She's fairly confident in her ability to scrape by with a decent C (or maybe a B- if she remembers to punctuate) in her other classes, so when they start drifting away from their textbooks she doesn't fight too hard to turn the conversation back to studying. They've covered off all the Bio chapter topics and, if she can remember those and some of the bullet-pointed examples tomorrow, she'll consider herself well prepared.

"You know," she says, curling up on her side of the sofa, "I'm shocked you didn't have a hot date or something tonight."

He raises an eyebrow. "What? A ten-buck pie and a six-pack doesn't count?"

"Ha! _No_. Though I suppose it's not surprising you're losing your mojo -- isn't impotence pretty common when you get to your age?"

He doesn't choke on his beer or spit-take or anything (which, thank god, because: _eww_ ) but he does spend the next twenty minutes defending his penis, the Constitution, and the North Korean arms trade (all of which are apparently related) until she's not only a little, sorta, kinda, _maybe_ sorry she made the crack in the first place, but also about two percent ready to offer him compensation for the pain and suffering caused by her comment.

"Man," she says, eyeing his long-limbed sprawl at the other end of her sofa, his body language deceptively casual considering how passionately he just argued his case. "I am so not nearly drunk enough right now."

He takes a long pull of his beer and nods like she just said, 'yes, Jeff, as usual you are completely right and I am completely wrong'. "Lawyer."

She rolls her eyes. "Douche."

He smiles.

  


* * *

  


Annie's twenty-first is a blurred mix of vodka-laced jello shots, whiskey-laced whiskey's, and enough schnapps to blur every memory Britta has ever had of, well, _everything_.

She just, you know, wishes 'everything' could be defined by 'Jeff's tongue down her throat' instead of 'Jeff losing every argument they are having tonight' and 'everyone in the study group admitting that she is _the bomb_ '.

"The bomb? Seriously? What is this, 1997?"

Straddling him, she nips at the ridiculously sharp curve of his jaw. "Shut up, Winger."

His hands tighten on her hips, tugging her closer. He smirks. "Make me."

  


* * *

  


She dates her absolute most perfect match in the _universe_ and dumps him two hours later.

He sexts what must be like thirteen different women while letting her cry near -- but definitely not on -- his shoulder.

"I don't wanna another drink," she says, pulling her glass closer and using her straw to stab at the remaining olives. "Every time we do this we --" she waves a hand between them and their glasses and _them_ , "-- _do_ this."

Jeff doesn't even look up for his blackberry. "What's your point?"

Shifting in the booth, she leans against the wall and brings her legs up and over his lap, trying to ignore the way her phone is vibrating in her pocket. Stupid text message alert. "It's _sad_."

"Because you're crying, _yeah_." Finishing his drink, he drops his hand onto her leg. "Have another drink."

Sure, because _that'll_ help. Ever since they decided last year that they were done with all those Greendale-sponsored hook-up's that had even flimsier excuses than Dean Pelton's justifications for an outfit change, the only time she and Jeff get together anymore is when they're drinking together.

"Like _now_ ," she points out, drawing out the word until it has a ridiculous amount of syllables.

He doesn't even roll his eyes. In her pocket, her phone gets another text.

"Jeff!"

"Hmm?"

"Pay attention! I'm having an epiphany here." And she totally is, too. One filled with insight and understanding and a whole heap of other psychology-based things. (She is absolutely going to ace her final this semester.) "Jeff!"

With a way over-dramatic sigh, he drops his blackberry long enough to look at her. "No, you're not. Or, at least, not the right one. Now, please, for a love of all things -- _have another drink_."

Ha! As if. "You just want me to get all silly with you again!" Which he doesn't, she knows, but if anything'll keep his attention, it's the defence to an irrational accusation. The ass-douche lawyer part of him won't be able to --

"Well, _yeah_."

Wait. What?

"Why else do you think I've been working my hardest to become an alcoholic this year? For the constant hangovers?" He scoffs. "Please."

This doesn't make any sense. "But you said --"

"I know what I said."

Then -- "And _I_ said --"

"Yeah, I remember that too."

"So --"

"-- why would I want to keep having incredibly awesome sex with someone who's almost as pretty as I am? And who's probably my best friend? Gee, Britta. I don't know." He turns back to his blackberry. "Hipster," he mutters under his breath.

"Douche," she responds automatically, still trying to process --

Her phone vibrates again and with a frustrated growl, she digs it out of her pocket with every intention of throwing it across the Red Door. "Stupid brick of a --" Her voice dies off.

Jeff captures the attention of the waitress and orders them another round while she skims through her messages.

All fifteen of them.

"Fifteen messages," she says, staring at him. "This _whole time_ we've been sitting here, you've been texting _me_?"

He barely even glances at her, but his hand tightens on her leg. "Took you long enough."

"But these -- these aren't _sexts_!" Or, at least, most of them aren't. Most of them are ridiculously sweet things like, _you look pretty_ and _can I hold your hand?_ and other things that she totally remembers him saying, once before, a forever ago, for forty minutes on her voicemail.

Things he had never ever mentioned again and which she was sure he never ever would.

"Britta," he says again, as their waitress returns, his voice this time sarcastic-lite and kinda soft and hopeful, "have another drink?"

Her heart does a perfectly perfect cartwheel in her chest, every thousand and one good memory of their good times flooding back in a rush.

"Yeah," she manages, starting to smile, "okay."

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/521927.html>


End file.
